


Get A Say

by sunflowr_child



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, JUST KISS ALREADY, Jealous Oliver Queen, Online Dating, Season 3, Sort Of, Team Arrow, Team Flash, but not really, cuz who doesn't love that, in which we feel the feels, lots of angsty arguing, stumbl, who is hacking Felicity's phone...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:02:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18230909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowr_child/pseuds/sunflowr_child
Summary: “I need you to know, I wasn’t- I haven’t been pushing you because I was disappointed in you, I know you’re the best.”“You’re damn right.” Felicity bit out with tears in her eyes.Felicity discovers just how far Oliver's stubbornness will take him- and decides it's time for her to get a say.





	1. Chapter 1

"Aaand, done." Felicity pronounced with a sharp tap on the enter key of her poor, abused keyboard.

Swiveling around in her chair, she smiled proudly at Oliver, who was sitting at the other end of the lair, sharpening a new shipment of arrows.

"Done with what?" He spoke quietly, concentrated, with barely a glance in her direction.

Felicity's smile dropped and her brow tightened painfully- somehow reality always came zooming back when her attention was pulled away from a computer. Oliver clearly hadn't been listening to a word she had said for the past hour. Since he had come back from their latest mission he had been puttering around the lair, uptight, looking for things to keep his hands busy while she ran search algorithms and coded. Normally, she wouldn't mind it, but things had been tense between them lately- and tense was putting it mildly.

Oliver had been making more and more demands from Felicity while she ran back and forth from Palmer Tech to the Arrow cave, barely making it home every day to change clothes. If she didn’t find Oliver beating down a training dummy when she came back to the lair, she would find it empty with various equipment strewn on the floor.

Felicity shook her head clear and stood with a sigh of exasperation, walking over to where he was seated.

"You know those are the best aluminum carbon composite arrows on the market, secured without a single trace back to you, designed for maximum speed and sound dampening. I thought of everything- I'm sure they don't need sharpening."

"You can never be too careful." He relented as Felicity's heels clicked to a stop in front of his table.

"Anyway, done with what?" Putting down the arrow, he looked up at her.

She took a deep sigh before launching into an explanation of everything she had already told him over the last hour, "I've perfected the online security measures; not a single electronic device attached to the lairs brand-new private servers can be accessed or interfered with by any outside source, other than signals coming from within the lairs mainframe itself of course. I'm actually very-"

"Felicity,"

"-proud of all the work I’ve done. It's probably some of my-

"Felicity!" Oliver finally succeeded in interrupting her.

Felicity leveled Oliver with a look fit to kill as he stood and pointed to her workstation, where her phone was about to vibrate itself off the desk.

She rolled her eyes as she turned to go and get it, ponytail flicking behind her.

"What is it? Did facial recognition find a match?" Oliver asked, concern lacing his voice.

He walked over to her desk, where she was staring at her phone with eyebrows knit together in confusion as it continued to vibrate. “What is it?”

_Oh, so now he was going to pay attention._

Oliver bore down on her as the silence stretched out, “Felicity! If there's a new lead we don't have time to-”

“It’s nothing.” she snapped.

Oliver swallowed back the lecture he was about to give and tilted his head in confusion; was that a blush creeping up her face?

“Felicity, you know that you can talk to me-”

“ _Talk to you_? All I ever _do_ is talk to you, Oliver. But nothing seems to be getting through that thick skull of yours lately except leads and targets.”

Oliver's face shuttered into a look of surprise.

“It really is nothing, Oliver. My phone is acting up, or- something.” She set the phone down with a clank and turned to her computers.

“Felicity, I-”

She shook him off and continued on, “It’s just spam. Maybe the new security measures aren’t working properly.” She reached to click open a dialogue box as she sat down.

The phone continued to vibrate, the screen lighting up so that Oliver could see the application she had open from where he stood behind her chair.

“Is that..?

“Shut up.” Felicity reached to grab her phone, but Oliver had already seen Stumbl, Starling City's premiere dating app, open on her screen- judging by the rare smirk on his face.

“I don’t know why I’m suddenly getting all these notifications. I tried it once, like months ago, and it’s never worked for me before. It’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, so you can wipe that look off of your face. I never even got any matches- I mean, until now. But it’s probably just a virus.”

It was Oliver's turn to knit his brows in confusion, “Felicity, what-”

“I told you it was stupid.” She cut him off again. “Online dating is just- stupid. And desperate. Which I guess is what I was when I-”

Oliver swiveled Felicity’s chair around to face him. “ _Felicity_ , it’s not stupid. It’s not desperate. I- I used to use it, a very long time ago.”

Felicity’s eyebrows shot up. “So the tabloids got _some_ things right.”

Oliver rolled his eyes and braced his hands on the hand rests of her chair. “Yes, I used to use it, pre-island days, which is how I know that you’re supposed to be getting matches every day. It's kind of the gimmick of the app.”

Felicity snorted at that, “Woah there, we can’t all be the handsome, brooding, Oliver Queen.”

A pause. Her phone was attempting to vibrate itself out of her hand as more notifications kept pouring in.

“I mean- not that I think you’re handsome. I mean- you definitely are, but not like _that_. I just-”

“Felicity.” Oliver caught her eye and she let out a breath. “What I’m trying to tell you is that what is happening with your phone is not normal.”

“Of course it’s not- wait a second now I’m getting a bunch of texts?” Felicity swiped at her phone in confusion. “Anyway, I _know_ that Oliver. Do I need to explain to you what a virus is again? Well, not that I would ever get one because I run scans on all of our equipment daily. It's probably just a problem with Stumbl's host server, or- my network?”

“No, Felicity, think about when you started getting the notifications.”

“Listen, Oliver, I don’t know why I’ve never matched with anyone. I cleared my cache and I even tried a hard reset on my phone, but eventually I just came to terms with-”

“ _Felicity_.” Oliver said gently as she leveled him with another killing glare. “I understand very little of what you're saying, but from what I do understand, maybe your security measures aren’t malfunctioning. Maybe it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.”  
  
Felicity’s eyes opened wide. “Oh- oh!”

Oliver stepped back as she spun around in her chair and let her fingers fly over the keyboard. He watched her pull up the remote accessing software and locate the problem in the blink of an eye.

“You’re right- my phone was compromised, but it wasn’t a virus. I was receiving false OS updates that were screwing with my in-app permissions. That is, until I started running off our new servers. I can’t believe I never detected it- but they were sending patched updates directly through the manufacturers host site to prevent detection. But who would go through all that...?” her fingers stilled on the computer's track-pad.

“What?” Oliver snapped Felicity out of a long train of thought.

Felicity swiveled her chair back around with a question poised on her lips.

“How many matches a day did you say you were getting?”

Oliver gave a short laugh as he glanced at the floor. “I don’t really see why that’s important.” His gaze was brought up again as her phone continued to vibrate itself across the desk.

His voice turned harsh again, “I think what's more important is that someone successfully managed to hack into your phone and you didn't even notice.”

Felicity picked up the phone and put it on silent before turning back to him, one eyebrow raised.

“Before you give me yet another speech about how I'm off my game and could be compromising the Arrow- they didn't hack _me_ , they hacked my phone's software. Nothing less could have slipped past me. All information on my phone is end-to-end encrypted and they had no way of reading it, they only had the ability to block incoming data packets. Now before you ask me to say that in english- you didn't answer my question.”

“I’m more concerned about your safety than the Arrow’s- and fine,” He shrugged, “twenty? I don’t remember.”

“Twenty?” Felicity’s voice rose in disbelief.

“I told you, I don’t really see why-”

“And did you go out with all of them?”

“Of course not, Felicity.”

“ _Of course not_ , as prolific as you were back then, even twenty a day would have been a bit much for you.” Felicity rolled her eyes and swiveled back around.

“Hey.” Oliver said lowly as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Did I hit a nerve? I'm sorry.. if I wasn't listening to you, earlier.”

Her shoulders slumped under his hand. Her response coming out slower than her previous volley of retorts. “No. I’m sorry, I know that's not who you are anymore. I don’t know why I said that.”

She turned to him suddenly with eyes threatening to spill over, “Well, that's not true. We both know why I said that; but nothing is ever going to change so I shouldn’t have brought it up.” he held her gaze as he took in her words and the two dark circles under her eyes. They took on an almost bluish hue against her pale skin. He hadn't noticed they were there before.

He blinked the thought away before she could notice him staring. “We're both different people than when we started this, Felicity.”

Silence fell between the two, and Oliver couldn't help but feel the intense need to immediately repair the situation. He always felt that way with her.

He looked up from the floor and pasted on a trademarked grin, trying to get her to do the same. “But if I didn’t know any better, you sounded a little bit jealous.”

An incredulous look washed over Felicity’s face, “Was that supposed to be a joke? Are we on joking terms now?” she shot out of her chair to stand in front of him with arms crossed.

Oliver paled as he opened his mouth and immediately prepare to backpedal the hell out of that last statement.

“Jealousy? You're the one who couldn't screw his head on right at even the mere thought of Ray and I having a business dinner. You're the one who's made damn sure that I can't do my job at Palmer tech by demanding I track down your leads within a matter of hours, Oliver. You’re the one who asks so much of me that I’m guaranteed to always be a disappointment to you.” Hot, angry tears were spilling down her face now. “You know I'm the best. You know I'm working as hard as I can- but it doesn't matter to you. All that matters is that I'm here with you, and not with him.”

The silence stretched out, he spoke her name at barely a whisper. “Felicity…”

“Stop. Stop holding me at arm's length, Oliver. You said yourself that you couldn't be the Arrow and Oliver Queen at the same time. So stop trying to have me and not have me at the same time.”

Felicity's truths throbbed in Oliver's chest, more piercing than any wound he bore the mark of.

“Either do something, or let me go. _Please_.”

He stood before her, speechless and paralyzed by indecision.Their relationship was too brittle- so brittle it frayed at his every nerve. He couldn't speak for fear that he would say the wrong words. So instead he allowed the seconds to tick by until the sting of her words dulled in his chest.

He held her gaze long enough to see it completely close off to him

“Leave, please.”

She turned back to her desk quietly and sat.

“I’ve had a long day running comms and writing code, and now I just need some space to figure out what's going on with my phone”

Oliver let out a shuddering breath and picked up his jacket from a nearby table. He had taken things a step too far with Felicity and she had finally pushed back- pushed him into making a decision and closing the matter.

He was reluctant to leave things like this, and stood frozen watching her back. She misread his hesitancy and huffed at him angrily without even turning around.

“I'll get you those leads when I am able, and not a second sooner. _Leave_ , Oliver.”

The fist that held his jacket shook as he tamped down every feeling she had stirred up in him. “Alright.”

Moments of insecurity brought out this side of him- the side that had earned him the nickname, “Ollie”, the side that could fix things with a lopsided smile and a snide remark. But she had always seen right through that act, right through the casual jokes and straight to the heart of the matter. He had seen his remark on jealousy as a way to bring out her smile, a rare sight these days- where she had seen the remark for what it was.

Oliver walked up the steps of the lair in stony silence. He turned as he reached the door, grasping for the words to say. “Great work today, Felicity.”

Again, silence.

“Uh, don’t stay up too late. You know how you get with the, uh, computers.”

“ _Goodnight_ , Oliver.”

 

* * *

 

Oliver arrived back at the lair before the sun was up, his many mistakes concerning Felicity still fresh on his mind. He tried to shut out thoughts of her, of not being able to be with someone he truly cared about, but he'd tossed and turned over it all night- not that he ever slept much anyways. And it didn’t seem like she had been lately, either. She was right- he had treated her unfairly, Oliver knew that Felicity was the best, but he also knew she wouldn't be able to rest until a job was done well. And so he made her feel like she wasn't doing enough, and he pushed and pushed her in order to keep her down in the lair. With team Arrow. With _him_.

He needed to fully let her go or he would only continue to cause her pain.

Tapping the door code into the keypad, he was expecting to find Felicity still tapping away at the computer, despite his advice. Much to his surprise, he found her chair empty as he clambered down the stairs. Some type of search was still up and running on the main screen, which was strange. Felicity would never leave the lair vulnerable like that, with the computers unlocked and exposed to anyone who might be able to break past their security defenses. With Felicity designing most of their security protocols, however, that possibility seemed unlikely. She probably just had too much on her mind and wanted to get home quickly.

Oliver swallowed down the guilt and stepped up to the salmon ladder, ready to work out some of his frustrations.

“Oliver,” Diggle called in greeting as he walked down the steps. “Is Felicity not here yet?

“No, was she supposed to be?” Oliver’s brows were tightly knit as he turned to his friend.

“We agreed to meet early to train, I was supposed to pick her up but she's not home.”

“She left everything on too, I’m calling her.” Oliver pressed the call button and held it to his ear as it rang out unanswered.

Oliver and Diggle looked at each other with concern in their eyes. Neither wanted to be taking any chances, Malcolm Merlyn was still running around Starling as well as Brickwell and his thugs.

Oliver stared down at his phone, finger hovering over the call button again- maybe she just didn't want to talk to him right now, or ever? He couldn't keep the pain from flashing across his face, and Diggle was never one to ignore what was going on. John stepped forward with an arm on Olivers shoulder.

“Is everything alright?”

Oliver finally decided to put the phone down.

“No.” Was his answer, putting a hand to his forehead to rub away the worry lines creased there.

Diggle was surprised at the honesty of his answer. “What is going on with you two? You’ve been hovering around her like a hawk, she’s walking around here like a zombie, and the two of you combined have barely said a word to me in days.”

Oliver could only look away, shaking his head.

“Look, man, you realize Ray and her are not together anymore, right? Do you think maybe it’s ti-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, no surprise there”

“ _John-_ ”

Oliver didn't say anymore, turning instead to the salmon ladder and beginning to work his way up.

As he dropped down, he saw Diggle taking his phone from his ear, “She's not answering my calls either.” His eyes roamed around the lair until they landed on Felicity's workstation, and then they lit up with an idea.

“Don't, John. I think she just needs some space right now.”

“I'd rather her be angry with me for turning on her tracker than sit here all day worried about where she is.”

Diggle went for the computers and sat down in Felicity’s chair, bringing up the tracking system she had in place for each of them. The one she had specifically said, in her loud voice, was only to be used in case of emergencies.

“She told me that even a dummy could run this, hopefully she was right.”

Oliver stood hesitantly behind John as he turned on the program Felicity had designed. John's fingers moved slowly over the keyboard, “Besides, if she's not here, and she's not at home- she's probably just lost in a computer somewhere at Palmer Tech.”

A blinking red dot came up on the screen, “Felicity’s phone is still online, and moving fast. She's not at Palmer Tech, she's not even in Starling anymore. ”

Oliver let out a defeated sigh as he watched her tracker progress across the screen.

“What exactly happened between you two that would make her want to get so far away?”

“It's complicated.”

“Then uncomplicated it.”

The irritation showed in Oliver's eyes, “Talking about it won't change anything, we need to find out if she's okay.”

John flashed his eyes right back at his friend, “In case you haven't noticed, she hasn't been okay in a while, Oliver.”

Oliver wanted to completely shut down at the tone in John's voice, but he knew his friend was right.

“I've been horrible to her.” He swallowed. “I've been telling her to get her head in the game, and to think five steps ahead of our enemies, and to get results faster and faster- all because I'm selfish.”

Diggle nodded, if he could be counted on for anything, it was to be understanding. “It wasn't about keeping the city safe when it came to her, was it? It was about keeping her away from Ray.”

“I don't- I don't know John. I don't know if I've been doing this on purpose or for how long. She… she had had enough last night, told me that I had to do something or let her go. That I had to-” Oliver let out a breathe, “to stop holding her at arm's length.”

“You've made her feel small, Oliver. Like she can never do enough for you, or be fast enough to make you happy.”

“Did she tell you that?” Oliver gasped at the thought of what he had done to her.

“She didn't have to, she's been miserable, Oliver. You were right when you said you've been selfish, because you haven't even noticed.”

Oliver fell into a nearby chair, holding his head in his hands.

“I need her so much, John. But I can never really have her. So I forced the two of us into this space where I thought I could have both.” His words came out muffled from between his hands.

John's hand came to rest on Olivers shoulder once again.

“When are you going to realize that you are only one man?”

Oliver looked up at John, confusion etched into his brow.

“These names you've made for yourself, The Hood, The Arrow, Ollie, Oliver Queen- they're not different people. They're all you.”

Olivers eyes still looked at John in confusion, his head shaking.

“It's not like Oliver can be with her but The Arrow can’t- those are both you, man. You're compartmentalizing, and you're not the only one it's hurting.”

John walked back over to the computers, as Oliver ran those words, and her words, back over in his mind. Wave after wave hit him, all the things he had tamped down for months washed over him now and he had to bite down on a knuckle to keep from shaking.

He heard John clicking away at the computer, and then he heard him talking on the phone with someone, but it was all hazy in the background.

He couldn't do this without Felicity, he had tried and struggled for over a year without her on his team. He needed her expertise, he needed her guidance, but most of all he needed her light. Was she really asking him to let her go completely? He couldn't keep holding on to her in parts- wanting her physically close by but keeping his emotions miles away.

 _Do something or let me go_ , she'd said. But what had she expected him to do? Only in Oliver's most quiet dreams could he imagine taking her into his arms and telling her how much he loved and needed her, telling her one time for every time he had wanted to and did not. Could he really make it work? Would he fall back into his un-trustworthiness as Oliver Queen or would his enemies use her against him as the Arrow?

So many overwhelming thoughts rushed him at once, he couldn't help but feel that it would be the right thing to release her from the many different parts of himself that he felt shattered into.

Things came back to focus when he saw John's feet where he had been staring at the floor.

“Her assistant told me she called in sick today. She left her email open and I found a receipt for one train ticket to Central City.” Oliver looked up at that to see John in front of him, arms crossed.

A split second decision was made, Oliver jumped up from the chair and walked across the lair to grab his gear.

“Where are you going?” John called after him.

“I'm need to make sure she's okay, this just isn't like her.”

“What about our contacts in Central City?.”

“Reach out to them and send me an update- but, John,” Oliver finally stopped and turned to his friend, “I really need to do this.”

“But should you?” John challenged, arms crossed as he cocked his head to the side.

“Look, I know I haven’t handled… recent events very well. I think I should be the one to go and see if she’s okay. And- apologize.”

John took him in with a look, and Oliver prepared to insist he be the one to go find her- when John surprised him.

“I think that's exactly what you should do, too. And since she's already got a few hours head start on you, you better pull some of those rich boy strings and get a flight out there.”

Oliver gave his friend a firm nod with a smile, grabbing his gear and heading up the stairs,

“Text me with updates on her location!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set somewhere towards the end of Season three- where exactly, you might ask? Well, some magical land where Felicity is broken up with Palmer, Oliver has not yet flown away to join the league of assassin, and Barry hasn’t gone back in time to frick everything up. Please review if you enjoyed! Next chapter coming soon. Much love.


	2. Chapter 2

“-well when on Earth _were_ you going to tell me? I can't even _fathom_ what could have driven you to- to- go about invading my privacy like that! What did I ever do to either of you but try to help! And now you're telling me this went on for months? _Months_!?”

 

Fresh off a jet to Central City, Oliver had received a call from Diggle confirming Felicity’s location. If the tracking program wasn’t enough confirmation, a frightened phone call from Barry certainly was. Oliver now rounded the corner of the entrance to the heart of Star Labs, where Felicity was in full on loud voice mode, and as he neared he could see that Caitlyn and Cisco were on the receiving end of it. Barry was standing behind Felicity, suited up, looking like he was trying to find a good spot in her lecture to put a stop to- whatever it was that was going on.

“And you! Felicity turned on Oliver as he stepped through the door of the lab, hands up in surrender.  “How many times do I need to tell you not to come looking for me just because I'm not picking up the phone! Has it ever occurred to you that _maybe_ I just don't want to talk to you?”

Oliver went to open his mouth when he saw Barry behind her shaking his head, eyes wide in his direction. Oliver closed his mouth, message received.

Rhetorical question unanswered, Felicity turned back to the Caitlyn and Cisco, “Which one of you came up with this brilliant idea, anyways?”

Before they could stop themselves, two sets of eyes wandered over to Oliver. Felicity’s head whipped over in his direction, and then back to the two scientists, confusion written all over her face.

“Does someone want to explain exactly what I did here?” Oliver cut in.

“Oh, put an arrow in it.” Felicity snapped. “Those trackers in our phones, by the way, are for _emergencies_.”

Barry stepped forward with a calming hand on her shoulder, “Why don’t we just take a deep breath and-”

“No.” She stepped out of his grip and pointed a finger in Cisco’s direction, “You- explain.”

Cisco looked around to make sure she was indeed pointing at him, “Uh, well, Oliver- actually, the Arrow- gave us a call like… a couple months ago?”

 

Oliver inhaled sharply. He suddenly knew _exactly_ what was going on. But between the craziness of his nightly activities and trying to take care of his family- it had completely slipped his mind. Oliver placed his head in his hands as Cisco continued. How could he have been so _stupid_.  

“Yeah, it was totally just a few months ago, cuz that was right around the time Interstellar came out. Man that was a good movie, totally deserved a better score than it got on rotten tomatoes.”

“ _Cisco_.”

“Sorry, Oliver gave us a call and told us that he was worried about his team's safety. Said he needed a special favor. Actually, He asked us to temporarily filter any incoming communication to two specific devices.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed into slits as she processed this information. “And those devices were…?”

Cisco gulped, looking around for help. “A phone… and a tablet..”

“ _Whose_ phone and tablet, Cisco?”

“Yours.” Caitlyn spoke up for him.

Felicity nodded calmly, too calmly. “Hmm. And you just- did it. The Arrow asked you for a _special favor_ and you just- did it?”

A few beats of silence passed before Cisco piped up nervously, “I mean, we’re not saying you made it easy for us, you’re constantly using a different IP address, you update your firewall like a crazy person, you-”

“Thank you, Cisco.” Felicity deadpanned, “I’m glad it was a fun challenge for you.” and she turned and quickly walked out of the lab.

 

Oliver watched her walk out, ready to come up with some excuse to follow when her voice echoed from the hallway, “ _Are you coming?_ ”

He exited just as quickly and caught up with her in the hallway, where she was speed walking through the maze that was Star Labs.

“Don’t say anything.” she snapped as she heard him coming up behind her. He fell into a quick stride beside her as she fumed. 

“Oliver, I just took a very long, very uncomfortable train ride, only to learn that _once again_ , you are trying to insert yourself directly into my personal life while simultaneously being five thousand miles away.”

“Felicity, let me explain.”

“Please!” she blurted out as she finally came to a stop. “Please explain, Oliver! Explain to me what exactly possessed you to ask my friends to secretly monitor my _personal_ devices.”

“I was just trying to-”

“-keep me safe. Right?”

“Felicity, please listen.”

“No, you listen! Because here’s what’s going to happen, you’re going to go right back in there and tell them to stop whatever filtration system or whatever nonsense you asked them to do, and then you are going to leave me very much alone.” Felicity emphasized each point with a finger in the air, her voice breaking under the stress.

She turned towards the elevator, her heels clicking at a sharp pace, shoulders tensed.

 

“I thought I had killed you.”

 

Olivers words stopped her in her tracks, spoken so softly she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly.

“You looked so beautiful in that red dress, I never wanted you to stop looking at me the way you did that night- but then your eyes were closed, and my ears were ringing so loud, I couldn’t tell if you were responding to me and- and I thought I was going to have to call your mom and tell her-”

Fresh pain bloomed across his face as she turned and their eyes met.

“Tell her that because of me, her daughter had almost been shot up in an underground Casino, had almost been injected with a lethal dose of vertigo, and the dollmaker- god the _dollmaker_ , Felicity, he could have-”

Oliver cut himself off with a hand to his mouth, a hand that Felicity could see shaking as she came closer.

“I am so dangerous to you, Felicity.” Oliver drew a breath to steady himself, “I lost my focus for one second and someone was able to make an attempt on my life- on _our_ lives. I thought that maybe after what had happened in the restaurant, someone could have figured out who you are, who you are _to me_.” Oliver released the breath he had taken.

“So I did something really stupid and I called up Team Flash and I asked them to keep an eye on you… digitally. I went way over the line but I immediately felt so much better knowing that no one could get to you like that. And I- Felicity I need you to know that that’s not all. ” Oliver faltered; Felicity crossed her arms, her mouth in a hard line, “When I would patrol sometimes, I would walk the rooftops around your apartment. I needed to make sure that you were going to be okay- But that doesn’t make any of it right by a long shot and I’m so, so sorry Felicity.” He saw the shock in her eyes and was disgusted with himself.

“I need you to know, I wasn’t- I haven’t been pushing you because I was disappointed in you, I _know_ you’re the best.”

“You’re damn right.” Felicity bit out with tears in her eyes. Oliver couldn’t even bring himself to look at her.

“I was disappointed in myself, Felicity. I failed you, I’ve failed you so many times. So I pushed you because I wanted you to leave me, to leave team Arrow and be safe. But even just the thought of you leaving makes me so scared, I just wanted to hold onto you as tightly as possible. You’re right- I’ve been trying to have you and not have you for so long, I’ve been so incredibly unfair to you Felicity.” Oliver stepped forward to reach out to her, whether it was to steady himself or her, he wasn’t sure- but she took a step back, arms still crossed tightly.

He swallowed down the feeling as he let his outstretched hand fall back to his side.

“Felicity-” He started again but she only drew her arms into herself more tightly.

“You have been.” She nodded quietly, “You have been incredibly unfair to me. You say that you’re a danger to me, you say that you’ve failed me, and yet, somewhere, in all of this, you never _once_ stopped to ask me asked for my input. You say we’re a team but you always make every decision for me. And some decisions,” She flung her arm in the direction of the lab, “you keep secret from me until everything goes to hell!”

“I’m done with you pushing me away and keeping secrets from me for the sake of my safety. This is what I signed up for, Oliver! I don’t need you stalking me at night and I certainly don’t need you spying on my phone! Don’t act like being in danger is some burden you’ve foisted upon me. I am perfectly capable of getting myself into trouble, with or without you, as was very well proven when my ex-boyfriend, turned NSA agent turned cyber-terrorist criminal, rose from the freakin’ dead to murder me!” Oliver turned away as Felicity wiped an angry tear from her cheek, her voice only getting louder. “Which- by the way! I am perfectly capable of protecting myself ‘digitally’, I’m not some idiot that’s going to be lured away by a stranger on the internet. More than invading my privacy, I think the worst part of all of this is that you continue to act like you’re the only one around here with autonomy, or a brain!”

They let silence fall between them. Felicity caught her breath. Oliver tried not to let the shame swallow him up.

“I get that you’re scared.” She said quietly.

“That part, I do understand. Every single time you go out with that suit on… I wonder. But then I remember, this is what you chose. And this is what _I_ _chose_ to do alongside you. We both get a say in this life we lead.”

Felicity uncrossed her arms to poke him sharply in the chest. “Remember that.”

She let out a shaky exhale as she gathered herself up, half turning to to leave, swiping at another tear with the palm of her hand.

“You said that you failed me, so- fix it.” He nodded gently as his eyes wandered the other way, down the hallway to the lab.

She watched her feet as she headed to the elevator and pressed the call button. Oliver was still standing where she left him. The elevator doors closed over his figure, hands resting in his pockets, and a tight crease on his forehead as he watched her go.

 

* * *

 

Felicity plunked her suitcase down at the end of the hotel bed before free-falling into the soft mattress. She took a deep breath and a much needed moment to rest her eyes, but when she opened them it was dark outside and she felt that gross feeling you get when you fall asleep wearing jeans. The clock on the nightstand told her she had been asleep for two hours, and a glance at her phone showed multiple missed calls. She rolled her eyes and tossed the phone onto the floor without even looking at the caller, and headed for the bathroom.

There it was- a black, square tub at the center of a white marble bathroom, facing a floor to ceiling window, heavy black curtains and lush green plants framing a stunning view of the city lights. She couldn’t help but let out a squee of delight as she inspected every detail of the fancy bathroom. This tub was the reason she had paid way too much for a room at the heart of central city.

When she had made the decision to take a train here, she thought it would give her some time to clear her head, maybe the view would relax her. About ten hours into the journey, however, the passing scenery was making her sick and she remembered why she had hated her last journey there because the seats were designed in a way that made laying down a joke. _“You couldn’t have just picked up a phone, huh Felicity?”_ She muttered to herself as she looked up hotels in central city. A picture of this very tub caught her eye on the homepage of the hotels website and she thought- why not make it a mini vacation? Ray was always telling her she needed to take a break from being the first one there in the morning and the last person there at night. She’s sure it had nothing to do with the awkwardness of having to work with ones ex-girlfriend. “Don’t come back for at least a week.” was his reply to an email she had shot off notifying him of her time off.

She slipped into a hotel robe and turned the water on as hot as it would get. She obsessed over the fancy bath salts and soaps she found on the bathroom counter, dumping a little bit of everything into the water before heading to the mini bar. Looking out on the city from a steaming bubble bath with a drink in hand, she finally let some of the tension out of her shoulders. Man, some people really lived like this every day. She’d never stayed in a hotel room that came with all the amenities of this one, and she had stayed in many, many, hotel rooms growing up in Vegas; not to mention traveling with Oliver. Although when they were traveling, there was never really time to sit around looking out at views. But once upon a time, maybe Oliver had-

Felicity shook her head to clear thoughts of Oliver and sunk down deeper into the bubbles.

She was pruny by the time she remembered her phone. She jolted out of the water and put the fluffy robe back on, teeth chattering as she went back into the bedroom and got down, grumbling, to search for the phone without her glasses on. She didn’t want her friends to worry- now that she actually thought about it, she was surprised no one had come and pounded the door down. Maybe someone was actually respecting her need for space.

She finally found the phone under the edge of the bed, the screen lighting up orange with even _more_ Stumbl notifications. She rolled her eyes, sitting on the bed as she swiped them all away. Finally, she got to her missed calls and messages, which were… surprisingly, all from John. All of the notifications were from after she had left Star Labs, she had already swiped away any of his and Olivers attempts to communicate with her on the train. Looking at the time, she fired off a quick text letting him know she was safe and would be away for a few days. His reply came back before she had a chance to put her phone down.

“Good to know. We’ll give you the space you need. Just let me know you are alright :)”

“I will.”

“Oh & John?”

“Yeah?”

“That tracking software is 4 EMERGENCIES.

But I still love u.”

“I know :)”

 

* * *

 

Team Flash broke apart from a whispering huddle as soon as Oliver walked back in the door.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. Caitlin, Cisco, I’m so sorry I got the both of you involved.”

“Well, we certainly could have hesitated a bit more before agreeing to spy on one of our good friends.” Caitlin replied, chewing on her lip.

“I mean, technically, it wasn’t spying. Any data we were able to lift would have taken a literal thousand years to decrypt.” Cisco reasoned.

“Then what was it, ‘technically’?” Barry tilted his head at them.

“Not much, actually. We thought we’d just be making sure no one was taking an interest in her data, blocking apps from getting her location or metadata- but we figured out just how over our heads we were _real quick_. It took us weeks to even get a peek at incoming data. So well, we,” He glanced at Caitlin, “just decided to block any contact that we thought seemed unsafe.”

“Ya know, It would have been nice to be kept in the loop about the side projects we’re doing for Team Arrow.” Barry addressed both his friends and Oliver, hands on his hips.

“Barry, It’s the _Arrow_.” Cisco gestured with one arm flung out towards Oliver. “When the Arrow asks you to do something in a low scary voice, you just thank your lucky stars you haven’t wet yourself and- I mean, he was worried about Felicity.”

“We’re all worried about each other, all the time! But you guys don’t see me going behind your back and-”

“No.” Oliver interrupted, “I’m sorry, but none of this is on them. I’m the one who messed up here. What I did was unfair, and I asked them not to mention it to you. I just-” He looked to the ceiling, taking in a deep breath and releasing. “I’m still figuring out that I can’t control everything.”

Barry crossed his arms, “That would be an understatement.” Oliver threw a cautioning look his way.

Caitlin changed the topic quickly, “Why weren’t you answering our emails?”

Confusion creased Olivers brow, “Even if I knew that I had an email, I definitely wouldn’t have been checking it after I was voted out of my own company.”

All three faces blinked at him.

“Well we don’t have time to unpack all of that-” earned Cisco an elbow to the ribs as Caitlin picked up where he left off, “We were trying to contact you about what you wanted our next moves to be. We figured it was safer than a phone call or a text, and we were trying to let you know that someone had been pinging her location- several times, actually.”

“What?” Oliver was incredulous, “and you didn’t think that warranted more than an email?”

Cisco narrowed his eyes, “Didn’t you _just_ say you never should have asked us to-”

“It was Ray Palmer.” Caitlin clarified. “We’ve met him- they were dating, so, we figured it wasn’t exactly a red alert.”

“Ray-?” Oliver muttered to himself.

“Can you guys give us the room?” Barry asked rhetorically before super-speeding away, walking back into the room in his street clothes. “We’ve been working hard all day, go home and get some rest and I’ll do the same when I’m done here.”

Caitlin only smiled apologetically as she collected her purse and walked out the door, Cisco behind her ticking up an eyebrow with a sarcastic, “Good luck.”

Barry shook his head in exasperation, rolling a desk chair towards himself to sit down.

Oliver watched the two go before he looked to Barry, “I overstepped, this is your team and I should have… well I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but I should have asked you first.”

“That’s exactly where you’re wrong, Oliver. It’s not _my_ team, you don’t need my permission.”

Oliver leaned back on the desk beside his friend, arms crossed, “Yeah- I get it, Barry, you’re all equals. You don’t need to explain that to me. You all make decisions together and what I did messed up that dynamic."

Barry huffed at Olivers abrupt tone, “Okay.” his eyebrows shot up, “If you get that, then why did you do it?”

“Because everything is not rainbows and butterflies in Starling like it is in Central City!” Olivers voice rose defensively, “ I need to be a leader, Barry! There’s real world consequences, real people would get hurt if I stopped to ask my friends how they felt about every decision I made. I don’t need you lecturing me about my team dynamic.”

Barry shook his head, disappointed, but not surprised. “You won’t even listen to the woman you love, why would you listen to me?”

Oliver straightened his spine and took a step towards Barry. Barry stood from the chair and met Olivers challenging look.

“Rainbows and butterflies, huh? You forget, Oliver, we’ve both lost family to our cities. We’ve both been betrayed by people we considered family. We’ve both accepted a darkness into our lives that we can never turn our backs on- and I don’t need an arrow in mine to remember that.” Oliver backed down at that, “The difference between us is how we choose to face it- I go with my friends, and you- you go alone.” Oliver set his jaw to the truths he was hearing.

“Felicity says that you’re a team. A partnership. A little while ago, when I was struggling with a huge secret- it was eating me up. She told me that my friends would always have my back, I just needed to let them. I’m sure she’s told you the same thing- listen to her.”

Oliver carded a hand through his newly shorn hair. He shook his head as he let out a dry laugh.

“What?” Barry

“It seems like Felicity has the monopoly on being right.”

Barry smiled too- yeah, she sure did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a review if you enjoyed, much love!


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